Thursday, 10 December 2009

Hidden treasure

In Obama's Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech, the phrase that struck a chord with me was: "that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls."

It reminded me of a story I used to retell each advent:

At the beginning of time, when the clay that formed humans was still damp, humans confronted the gods with the claim that they too were gods and had a stake in the divine inheritance. Realising that their godship was under threat, the gods decided they must hide the essence of deity somewhere that humans would never find it. If they hid it out in space, humans wouldn't rest until they could reach the stars. If they hid it in the depths of the seas, humans would find a way to mine the ocean depths. After much deliberation and rejection of ideas of safe hiding places one god disappeared and returned with the news that he had found a really safe space for the treasure, somewhere humans would never think of looking - deep within humans themselves.

That divine spark truly does stir in each of our souls. What a different world it would be if we could look for it in ourselves and in others.